Austerlitz Review - George Hornby

I did enjoy Dominic Cook's game diary, but realise that it wasn't
designed for those not yet playing Austerlitz and as such didn't
really convey the game's atmosphere and appeal.

Austerlitz is a wonderful game, prize-winning in its original
German form and licensed across the world. It is administered in
the UK with fine courtesy and efficiency by Sam McMillan at Supersonic
Games, who has GMed about 250 Austerlitz games.

It is a game of medium complexity, but takes a lifetime to master.
Almost.

Each game begins in January 1808 with 16 various powers. Each
has its own qualities broadly equivalent to its historical type.
For instance the UK is industrially the most advanced, has the
best navy, and a great colonial position, but is unable to place
troops safely on the European mainland unless a firm ally is first
found. The most vulnerable is the Confederation of the Rhine, blessed
with a modern competitive army, but limited by the smallest population,
and cursed with six ambitious neighbours.

Each turn you receive reports on your economy, army, navy, and
trading activities, as well as three pages of maps covering the
world showing economic developments, conquests, some fleet sightings,
and secret reports from your spies. Every game is different and
the answer to every decision is "Depends": upon your
best-guesses of what your 15 rivals are doing.

The first few turns (a "game month" every fortnight)
are spent building up the economy, recruiting and training troops,
jockeying for colonial possessions, and assessing the other players.
Before long more or less public alliances are formed and wars begin.
Some players are very aggressive; others defensively hope to grow
while nobody notices too much. Some are always on the phone; others
keep even their names secret, fuelling Gamers' Paranoia. But historically
families tended to obtain more than one throne; just look at the
Bonapartes, Habsburgs, FitzTancreds.

When enemy forces each totalling at least 100 battalions meet,
detailed Simulated Battles are fought. Maps are provided complete
with contours, varying terrain types, and computer-generated 'strategic
points', as well as lists of the units present with details as
to their troop-types, training-levels, and headcounts. Then each
player assesses the situation and considers many more changeable
characteristics including the relative strengths, speeds, and attributes
of units present; the likelihood of reinforcements reaching the
scene; the terrain; and estimates of the relative abilities and
impulses of the two opposing commanders at handling the particular
mixes of troops present. Accordingly, each player makes a plan
and issues orders (sometimes conditional) to his units as to tactics,
timings, and directions, trying to make sure he has the right blend
of artillery, pioneers, cuirassiers, hussars, grenadiers, voltigeures,
tuaregs, or whatever, at the decisive point to win the battle,
or perhaps merely to suffer fewer losses. Then the clockwork is
released and hundreds of phases of observation, movement, targeting,
firing, combat, routing, and rallying, are calculated for each
of the units present, and summarised on some 30 pages of report
added to your regular turn.

These battles are always different, but also change as the game
progresses and military inflation occurs. At first only the cheaper
troop types are usually worth recruiting, unless a player gambles
on making enough early conquests to pay for dearer ones. Later
on better and better troops can be raised, meaning that any battle
in 1819 will be very different from one in 1809.

Another realistic element is that victory is only obtained by
concession, not by any victory point system. This is pure Clauswitz:
your war aim is to persuade your enemy to give in. So defeat in
the field, loss of a capital city, or of your national granaries,
are only decisive if your enemy accepts it is such.

Up to three players can be agreed as winners. The fastest games
so far have ended in 1811; most are finished by the end of 1814;
but one or two have reached the 1820s. So if you join an Austerlitz
game, be prepared to invest between two and seven years of real
time before the game concludes.

Most players find it so addictive that they play in several games
simultaneously.

Austerlitz is a great, subtle, always surprising game, wonderful
if you like it. I do; whatever else the postman brings I always
open an Austerlitz envelope first.